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Two kinds of AI users are emerging

martinalderson.com

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Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#321

Post by idopmstuff »

3D30497420 wrote: post #300
bwestergard wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear about what your tools do.

You're in luck: https://theautomatedoperator.substack.com/

That's the place!

The most fun one is this, which creates listing images for my products: https://theautomatedoperator.substack.com/p/opus-45-codes-ge...

More recently, I'm using Claude Code to handle my inventory management by having it act as an analyst while coding itself tools to access my Amazon Seller accounts to retrieve the necessary info: https://theautomatedoperator.substack.com/p/trading-my-vibe-...

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#322

Post by jason_s »

idopmstuff wrote: post #273
3D30497420 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are interested only in results, and are not interested in knowing more about the topic or honing their skills in the topic And this may be fine in certain cases. I'm learning German and my listening comprehension is marginal. I took a practice test and one of the exercises was listening to 15-30 seconds of audio…

This is me, but for writing code. I own a business, and I use Claude Code to build internal tools for myself. Don't care about code quality; never seen the code. I care if the tools do the things I want them to do, and they verifiably do.

How do you verify them? How do you verify they do not create security risks?

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#323

Post by nurettin »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

It is so tiring to read this unoriginal copy-paste group-think literally everywhere. There is no "reasonable people versus opportunist bastards" war going on. This is a fantasy at best.

> People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations

You can't know the limitations of these tools. It is literally unknowable. Depending on the context, the model and the task, it can be brilliant or useless. It might do the task adequately first time, then fail ten times in a row.

> People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it

You can't get out of it something that you can't conceive of. There are real life consequences to not knowing what AI produced. What you wrote basically assumes that there is a group who consistently hit themselves on the head with a hammer not knowing what hurt them.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#324

Post by DirkH »

mettamage wrote: post #256
cik wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this misses a third group, those using these tools as a series of virtual teammates, a mock team member with which to ping pong possibilities. This is actually the greatest use case I see, and interact with.

Yea I am an ENFP. While I don’t think MBTI is scientific, it captures perfectly that I have the tendency to think out loud. LLMs make me think out loud way better. Best rubber duck ever.

Felt very weird reading this on HN and not r/ENFPmemes. I agree completely.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#325

Post by ottah »

cik wrote: post #223
PunchyHamster wrote: post #142

I'd argue 2 types of users are * People using it as a tool, aware of its limitations and treating it basically as intern/boring task executor (whether its some code boilerplate, or pooping out/shortening some corporate email), or as tool to give themselves summary of topic they can then bite into deeper. * People outsourcing thinking and entire skillset to it - they usually have very little clue in the topic, are int…

To me this misses a third group, those using these tools as a series of virtual teammates, a mock team member with which to ping pong possibilities. This is actually the greatest use case I see, and interact with.

I'd think you'd just get a lot of bots agreeing with you.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#326

Post by nebula8804 »

danielbln wrote: post #72
nebula8804 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All we need is one major crash caused by AI to scare the capital owners. Then maybe us white collar workers can breath a bit for at least another few more years(maybe a decade+).

A decade+ is wishful copium.

Well I did say "maybe". It all depends on how badly they get burned. A crash will hopefully scare enough of them from trying for a while.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#327

Post by wjholden »

chrisjj wrote: post #190
wjholden wrote: post #162

I remember a colleague jumping through hoops trying to get Python installed on an enterprise computer. We never did get to a yes and resorted to using PowerShell instead. The policy constraints at enterprises that this author describes are very real and very harmful. Perhaps the wildest thing to me is how you'll have senior leaders in a company talking about innovation, but their middle managers actively undermine ch…

> The policy constraints at enterprises that this author describes are very real and very harmful. This is like saying prison bars are harmful. It depends which side you are on.

That is an insightful response, I may quote you on this.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#328

Post by theshrike79 »

jason_s wrote: post #322
idopmstuff wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me, but for writing code. I own a business, and I use Claude Code to build internal tools for myself. Don't care about code quality; never seen the code. I care if the tools do the things I want them to do, and they verifiably do.

How do you verify them? How do you verify they do not create security risks?

Not every tool can have a "security risk". I feel that this stems from people who see every application as a product and products must be an online web app available to the world.

Let's say I have a 5 person company and I vibe-engineer an application to manage shifts and equipment. I "verify" it by seeing with my own eyes that everyone has the tools they need and every shift is covered.

Before I either used an expensive SaaS piece of crap for it or did it with Excel. I didn't "verify" the Excel either and couldn't control when the SaaS provider updated their end, sometimes breaking features, sometimes adding or changing them.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#329

Post by theshrike79 »

defrost wrote: post #12

The "upside" description: On the other you have a non-technical executive who's got his head round Claude Code and can run e.g. Python locally. I helped one recently almost one-shot converting a 30 sheet mind numbingly complicated Excel financial model to Python with Claude Code. Once the model is in Python, you effectively have a data science team in your pocket with Claude Code. You can easily run Monte Carlo simul…

At least the Python version can be verified with existing static analysis tooling and can have comprehensive unit tests.

The Excel never had any tests and people just trusted it.

Re: Two kinds of AI users are emerging

#330

Post by theshrike79 »

obscurette wrote: post #84
majormajor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the dirty secrets of a lot of these "code adjacent" areas is that they have very little testing. If a data science team modeled something incorrectly in their simulation, who's gonna catch it? Usually nobody. At least not until it's too late. Will you say "this doesn't look plausible" about the output? Or maybe you'll be too worried about getting chided for "not being data driven" enough. If an exec tells an i…

> If a data science team modeled something incorrectly in their simulation, who's gonna catch it? Usually nobody. At least not until it's too late. Will you say "this doesn't look plausible" about the output? The local statistics office here recently presented salary statistics claiming that teachers' salaries had unexpectedly increased by 50%. All the press releases went out, and it was only questions raised by the…

Lies, damn lies, and (unsourced) statistics.
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